Ships Passing- songfic. (23/6/12)

Ships Passing.
Featuring Rammon and Mitczet, from my Space AU.
Inspired by the song Ships in the Night by Mat Kearney and with mention of a poem by W. H. Littlejohn called Hospital Ship.
-bring your own meaning. Mit and Rammon most certainly do.

Rammon was not an educated man, but it had never felt like a deficit so much as it did today, as he watched with failing vision as the hulking form of the Free People?s Greenlit fired her aft thrusters and turned in a slow, graceful arc, taking his life away with her. His fingers, pressed against the transparent alloy, curled into a loose fist as if to reach for the shrinking ship, but there was no touching it now, and all that he was left with was a great, gaping gulf that his mind was unable to fill.

He had once been told that space was a vacuum, and that a vacuum was nothing, not even air, but he didn?t understand. If space was nothing, then why could he not simply reach out and touch the ship that even now was fading away into the dark blur of the stars? Surely, if space was nothing, then there was nothing between them, save for twin hulls and two bleeding, broken hearts.

~*~

?Space can?t be nothing. I can see it out there.?

?You can do nothing of the sort. You simply see the absence of light. Space is a vacuum, you cretinous fool, not some sort of physical object you can examine at leisure.?

?What did you just call me??

?Clearly you lack an extended vocabulary. I?d advise you to pick up a dictionary, but given that you?re completely illiterate-?

?You?d be dead if it wasn?t for me. I saved your life.?

?Yes, you beat a man to death with your bare hands. I?m sure your mother would be very proud, if you had one. Perhaps I could write a letter to the scientist that engineered you. I can see it now, ?Dear sir, I would just like to express my gratitude at your making a race of behemoth, subservient, soldiers to do the bidding of the war effort. Their ability to savage their opponents puts even animals to shame. And lacking pesky things such as morals and the ability to reason outside of orders-! Sir, your genius astounds me!

?Rammon, of course, is the panicle of your soldier race; large, bull-headed, completely idiotic and possessing a certain lewd satisfaction at the complete and utter destruction of his enemies-?

?I should have let you die.?

?But that would be disobeying orders.?

~*~

A friendship born of conflict, war and desperation; it should never have worked, but like Mitczet had always said, Rammon was too stupid to abide by logic. In a new, shattered universe, where his kind were hunted as the war-dogs of the losing side, he had found the orders that he craved in the only man left who could give them to him. He was fortunate, perhaps, that for all their resentment they were both the mythical ?good men? that Mitczet sometimes spoke of.

~*~

?Are you cold, Mit??

?No.?

?You look cold.?

?Your eyes are clearly more damaged than we first thought then, because I?m fine.?

?You can share my blanket if you want.?

?I?m not cold.?

??stubborn bastard? Well I am.?

?Oh fine, if I must. Move over.?

~*~

It must have been years. The slow erosion of everything that was formed the bedrock for something new; they had destroyed each other- will, prejudice, passion, strength- and built a cohesive, co-dependent unit out of the dust and splinters that remained. It was unclear when me and him had become us. They hadn?t even realised, until us had ruptured, severed along with Mitczet?s legs and left to bleed out on the deck of some nameless station.

~*~

?It?s called the Greenlit- it?s a hospital ship, Mit. You hear me? They?ll have doctors there, and they?ll make you better.?

??dim as the distance grows??

?Mit??

?Poetry, Rammon, poetry. Like ships passing in the night.?

?I don?t understand.?

?No, I don?t suppose you do. But don?t change. That?s why I like you.?

~*~

Greenlit. As a ship of the Free People, soldiers were far from welcome in those sterile halls, but without the knowledge and technology within Mit would die. Rammon had saved Mit?s life again, but at what cost? He tried to remind himself that he would have lost Mit anyway; the infection that had wasted his body and diluted his sharp intellect would have taken him away soon enough, but that did little to ease the agony of separation.

They weren?t supposed to be two separate people anymore. They had seen too much, saved each other so many times that it became second nature. His strength had become Mit?s and Mit?s intelligence had become his own; they had been one unstoppable being, and now they were both broken.

Aboard the Redlit (the only kindness the doctors had to offer him) Rammon wept for the unfairness of it all.

~*~

?Mit? Mit, come on, wake up a bit. I need to talk to you.?

?No, come on, open your eyes. This is important. It?ll only take a moment, I promise, and then you can go back to sleep.?

?I can?t stay here. I?m a soldier and this is a Free ship, they can?t- Mit, hey, no, don?t sleep yet. Listen. They?ve got sister ship and it?s passing this way soon. It?s called Redlit, and it takes people like me. They?ll be here within the hour, so I?ve not got long, okay??

??green-lit, red-lit? hospital ship??

?No. The Redlit?s not a hospital ship.?

Laughter. ?Poetry. Rammon? never change? never??

~*~

They had come for him, and he had followed them, boarding the ship and watching as Mit?s only chance of survival carried them apart. And now he stood, looking out into the vast expanse of emptiness that was stretching between them, and wondered how he was going to make sense of anything now.

?I need you to explain it for me, Mitczet. I don?t understand this world that I?ve brought us into.?

Silence.

Space was silent, he knew. No sound in a vacuum. Thousands of kilometres of nothing between them, but they could have been side by side, coasting along close enough to touch, and he wouldn?t have been able to reach the man who had become his constant companion. He could scream, he could claw at the walls and howl his heart out, but Mitczet would never hear him. Rammon?s forehead kissed the cold distortion of the porthole, and his eyes finally closed, blocking out the haze that had once been the ship that carried his better half off into an unknown future.

Rammon was not an educated man, but he was beginning to understand. Space was a vacuum, space was nothing; it occupied an area, but there wasn?t anything there. Just a great, sucking expanse of darkness where even shadows were consumed, and now Rammon understood. That selfsame vacuum had spawned somewhere in his chest, in the place where his heart had once been.

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